A Preface for Now

American Beauty (2002) Lester Burnham: [narrating] It's a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself.

Lester Burnham: I feel like I’ve been in a coma for about twenty years. And I’m just now waking up.

Ricky Fitts- "It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember... and I need to remember... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in."

Ricky Fitts: It's like God's looking right at you, just for a second, and if you're careful... you can look right back.

LESTER: The moments you remember are tiny ones, some you haven't thought of in years... If you've thought of them at all... But in the last second of your life, you remember them with astonishing clarity... Because they're just so... beautiful... that they must have been imprinted, on like a cellular level...

For me it was, lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars...

And yellow leaves from the ginkgo trees that lined our street...

Or my grandmother's hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper...

And the first time I saw my cousin Tony's brand new GTO...

And the way I felt when Angela first smiled at me...

LESTER: I guess I could be pretty pissed about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst...

And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life...

You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure... but don't worry...

You will someday.

RICKY: I didn't lose them. It taught me how to step back, and just... watch, and not take everything so personally. And that's something I needed to learn. That's something everybody needs to learn.

Lester to Carolyn
This isn't life! This is just stuff. And it has become more important to you than living. And honey, that's just nuts

Good Will Hunting (1997)

Sean: Do you have a soul mate?
Will: Define that.
Sean: Someone you can relate to, someone who opens things up for you.
Will: Sure, I got plenty.
Sean: Well, name them.
Will: Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Frost, O'Conner...
Sean: Well that's great. They're all dead.
Will: Not to me, they're not.
Sean: You can't have a lot of dialogue with them.
Will: Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts.

Skylar: What is your obsession with this money? My father died when I was 13 and I inherited this money. You don't think that every day I wake up and wish I could give it back? That I would give it back in a second if I could have one more day with him? But I can't, and that's my life and I deal with it. So don't put your shit on me when you're the one that's afraid.
Will: I'm afraid? What am I afraid of? What the fuck am I afraid of?
Skylar: You're afraid of me! You're afraid that I won't love you back! Fuck it, I wanna give it a shot! At least I'm honest with you.

Sean: Real loss is only possible when you love something more than you love yourself.

Sean: Nail them while they're vulnerable, that's my motto.

Will: [Sean is going through Will's profile. Inside we see are pictures of Will after brutal assaults by his foster parents] You ever have any, uh, experience with that?
Sean: Twenty years of counseling, I've seen some pretty awful shit.
Will: No. I mean, have you ever had any experience with that?
Sean: Personally? Yeah. Yeah I have.
[Sean looks away for a moment]
Sean: I'm sure it ain't good.
Will: My father was an alcoholic. Mean fuckin' drunk. Used to come home hammered, looking to whale on someone. So I had to provoke him, so he wouldn't go after my mother and little brother. Interesting nights were when he wore his rings...
Will: He used to just put a belt, a stick, and a wrench on the kitchen table and say, "Choose."
Sean: Well, I gotta go with the belt there.
Will: I used to go with the wrench.
Sean: Why?
Will: Cause fuck him, that' why.
Sean: Your foster father?
Will: Yeah.
[pause]
Will: So what does it say? Will has an attachment disorder? Fear of abandonment? Is that why I broke up with Skylar?
Sean: Didn't know you had. Wanna talk about it?
[Will shakes his head, stares off]
Sean: Will, you see this, all this shit?
[Holds up the file, and drops it on his desk]
Sean: It's not your fault.
Will: [Softly, still staring off] I know...
Sean: No you don't. It's not your fault.
Will: [Serious] I know.
Sean: No. Listen to me son. It's not your fault.
Will: I know that.
Sean: It's not your fault.
[Will is silent, eyes closed]
Sean: It's not your fault.
Will: [Will's eyes open, misty already] Don't fuck with me Sean. Not you.
Sean: It's not your fault.
[Will shoves Sean back, and then, hands trembling, buries his face in his hands. Will begins sobbing. Sean puts his hands on Will's shoulders, and Will grabs him and holds him close, crying]
Will: Oh my God! I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry Sean!
[Will continues sobbing in Sean's arms]

Sean: I teach this shit, I didn't say I know how to do it.

Sean: Maybe you're perfect right now. Maybe you don't wanna ruin that. I think that's a super philosophy, Will, that way you can go through your entire life without ever having to really know anybody...
Will: ...You ever think about gettin' remarried?
Sean: My wife's dead.
Will: Hence the word: remarried.
Sean: She's dead.
Will: Yeah Well, I think that's a super philosophy, Sean. I mean that way you could actually go through the rest of your life without ever really knowing anybody.
Sean: Time's up.

Chuckie: You're sitting on a winning lottery ticket and you're too big of a pussy to cash it in.

Sean: And why does he hang out with those retarted gorillas, as you called them, because any one of them, if he asked them to, would take a fucking bat to your head, okay? It's called loyalty.

Will: Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll take a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never met, never had a no problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Oh, Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes back to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them, but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back of course, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to the fuckin' job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure fuck it, while I'm at it why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.

I come to you beaten and broken, bent outta shape, and fucked mentally. Quite probably the worst shape I've been in years. The urges of my youth to do a plethera of unconscionable things rush through my head daily. I'm angry, sad, lonely, crazy, psycho, restless, anxious, paranoid, and the worst self-destructive. No need to worry, I've been here before and this to shall pass. I'm pushing 30 so even though the thought crosses my mind 2 or 3 times a day to bleed, I'm not that. I can't fight the desire to drink away my sadness or numb my feelings and emotions but I can fight the urge to hurt myself. Nothin will be enough or too much to give up. I'm beyond that, so....

I find when you think your at the end, it's important to remember the beginning. "American Beauty" changed my life. I saw it my sophmore year in College at Marist College. At the time I didn't know what the fuck I was gonna do with myself, with my life, "today is the first day of the rest of your life"........And? So what. Often the things that depress me the most are the social norms. Where am I in the phase of my life compared to where I should be like my peers in theirs. And I'm never jealous but I'm influenced by it greatly. I was studying advertising at the time, thinking about doing Journalism. Missing my x-girlfriend/girlfriend who was in Italy at the time. I missed her so much but like always I didn't want her to see me weak like that. So I spoke to her less and less.

The plastic bag scene made me cry from happiness and sadness, it gave me some kind of strength that even though I'm utterly alone, that feeling is just so universal. Beauty does that to you. It fills you up and you get scared that it'll go and you'll never see it again. In a heartbeat, it's there, filling you, driving you, like love and you feel so good cause it's just yours in that moment, and just as you blink your eyes it's gone. And you think you can reach out and grab it and pull it back but like your fingers passing through smoke it's evaporated. When I got back from the Cineama that night I wrote and wrote. I wrote a letter to Kate (my gf) and the next day purchased a camera. I started a documentary that interviewed people about the most random shit I could come up with. The interviews are like an hour each and there's 46 of them, mostly friends and strangers, when I come home I should really edit it together. I think many of their words would touch all of us in that kinda undescribeable beauty, especially since it was a little less then a decade ago.

Moments in American Beauty touched the fuck out of me. Personally, in a very personable way. Good Will Hunting as well. These 2 films have made me know why I love film, why film is what I'm suppose to do with my life. A day will come where the stars are all aligned and a message will come from inside me that transends on each frame. It'll paint those negatives with something spiritual, inspirational, and enlightening. It's a certain clarity that's infinite. Like you feel and here and have that message with you from now on. Time might cloud it's communication but you can always come back to it. When you come back to it, it may not hit you the same way it did the first time but it'll touch that same spot in your soul. Like a purely emotional nostalgia whose meaning will always be undieing.

Will Hunting is talking to his doctor (Robin Williams) near the end of Good Will Hunting. Robin Williams, the psycholigist, has finally gained his trust. Will says that his adopted father puts down a belt, a stick, and a wrench, and tells Will to chose which he's going to beaten with. Robin Williams says "I think I'd go with the stick there chief", and Will says "the wrench, cause fuck him!" Robin Williams moves towards him and says it's not your fault over and over again. Will gets pissed and shoves him but Williams keeps saying it and Will cry's cause all this time he's been blaming himself for a situation he was to weak to escape from.

That's how I feel right now. No I'm not being beaten physically, just emotionally. I'd rather physically, seriously! Why men love bitches? I'm not that man. I loved the pixie, the childish, passionate, sprite and I don't know why it changed. Where the self absorbed, hateful, bitter bitch came from. Yes I thought by doing things right, by having honor and chivilry and love would be enough, enough to keep that goodness that worked. That beautiful chemistry and romance. But it's not and If I don't give up there will be nothing left of me. I have to. By putting my all into her, I've lost the best parts of me for now. Egotistically I thought I'd be the example for the difference in her world, but I see what she does so clearly and whatever I think I may do to change it, she will change as well so to keep her grasp on her reality or relationships still true in her mind. So I gotta walk away, I have to keep to myself for a bit and rerecognize what virtues are indeed my strengths.

I think I'm miserable because A. I'm listening to Mayday Parade - Miserable At Best on repeat now for 3 hours (pathetic) and B. Cause there's no one here to tell me it's not my fault and I still love her even though loving her is being beaten internally with a wrench. I deserve better.

Miserable At Best - Mayday Parade : And this will be the first time that I weep, and I'd talk to you but I can't speak, been 3 whole days since I've had sleep cause I dream of his lips on your cheek, I got the point that I should leave you alone, but we both know that I'm not that strong and I miss the lips that made me fly...

"The thing about change is you never know it's there until it's fully taken over"